


Wouldn't Do

by damalur



Series: Depth Over Distance [2]
Category: Psych
Genre: Crack, Drunken Shenanigans, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1650023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damalur/pseuds/damalur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Juliet is a friendly drunk. Lassiter is a "friendly" drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wouldn't Do

**Author's Note:**

> Blame [slybrunette](http://slybrunette.tumblr.com/), I do.

Nadine really hadn't planned on getting caught up in all of it—and definitely not on her weekend off—but she was the unfortunate victim first in the line of Vick's sight when the Chief stormed out of her office. Spencer and Guster trailed behind her; there might have been some kind of slap war going on back there, but Nadine was too busy pulling her deer-in-the-headlights act to pay close attention.

"Detective Young!" Vick barked. "You're coming with me."

"I only came in to pick up—"

"I do not care right now," said the Chief. "I have been sent on an idiotic errand by the deputy mayor, and you are coming with me."

"And we are coming with you," Spencer said. He had his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. She sometimes found it hard to remember that he was older than she was. Not, you know, that she knew him _well_ —she was aware that he'd gone out briefly with her partner, but in the six months since she'd been made detective, neither she nor Juliet had been assigned a consultant. That made Nadine worried, frankly; was she doing a good enough job that they didn't think she needed the help, or were they going easy on the rookie? Was she so much of a dumbass that they didn't even trust her with a psychic?

"No," said Vick.

"Um, _yes_ ," said Spencer.

"Absolutely not, Mr. Spencer—"

"Chief," said Guster, "if I may, the deputy mayor did specifically request our presence on this, and in the interest of being paid this month…"

Vick looked like she was ready to take the head off of the next person who spoke. Through her gritted teeth, she forced out, "Fine. We are all going."

"Where are we going?" Nadine said, and then immediately upbraided herself for opening her mouth.

"Mustafar," said Spencer. "The land of brimstone and sulfur."

"Dibs on keeping all my limbs intact," she said.

"Ooh," said Spencer, "I like her, can we keep her?"

"Car. _NOW,"_ said Vick, and marched towards the door with Spencer hot on her heels. Guster took pity and waited for Nadine to collect her keys and shut off her computer; they followed at a slightly less breakneck pace. The sun was just starting to set outside. God, she hoped this errand wouldn't take long—her Stitch 'n' Bitch club only met every other week, and at this rate she was going to be so, _so_ late.

"It's an old case of Lassiter and Juliet's," Guster explained. "Or something like that, I'm honestly not too clear on the details. There might be a stolen paperweight? The deputy mayor wants it back."

"A...paperweight." She pulled the station door open and held it for Guster. "You've gotta be kidding. Did nobody think about, oh, _calling_ Juliet?"

"Her phone's off, and Lassiter isn't picking up his," he said. "I think they have some of the paperwork the Chief wants? I do not know. At this point I'd be happy if Shawn could scrape together enough money to pay his half of the cable bill."

Vick, who was apparently not in the mood to mess around, had taken up a seat in the front of a squad car. She rapped twice on the inside of the window and jabbed a finger at the backseat; Spencer was talking five hundred miles an hour from shotgun. Nadine climbed into the back and decided, if she was going to be co-opted for an off-duty assignment, that she might as well make the most of it, which meant milking this for all it was worth. She had a suspicion that Detective Lassiter was going to be less than delighted when they all turned up at his house on a Saturday night, and she was far enough down his list of retaliation targets that she could kick back and enjoy the show. 

Up front, Spencer had his fingers pressed to his temple. "I'm sensing it's a...an alligator? No, a turtle."

"Shawn," said Guster, "that was in Juliet's file. We all know the paperweight was a turtle."

"Ah, but Gus ol' buddy, do you know how the turtle _felt?_ All that stress building up in its—" He cut off when Vick shot daggers at him and then rallied. "Shouldn't you be watching the road, Chief?"

"I will watch whatever I damn well please," Vick said, and pulled to the curb in front of a one-story set well back from the curb. They all trooped out of the car and up the steps; Nadine made sure to stick to the rear, where she had a clear view of the situation and plenty of shielding between her and whatever mood Lassiter was in when he opened that door.

Behind her, the street lights started to turn on. She zipped her jacket up the rest of the way and watched as Vick pounded at the door.

There was a lot of pounding. When nobody answered after the first couple of knocks, Vick started to throw some yelling in there, too. After an entirely indolent period of time, they finally heard the deadbolt unlock, and then the door swung open just enough to reveal Detective Lassiter.

Nadine knew her partner had some kind of… _thing_ going with Lassiter. He'd been Juliet's partner before Nadine, and they'd had some kind of epic teamwork, judging by the stories she heard; and then they'd broken off their professional relationship. She'd never exactly understood why Juliet had decided he was the guy she most needed to stare at across the bullpen, but the Lassiter in front of them was very much not the buttoned-up hardass from work. He was wearing jeans and a checked shirt that was only half-buttoned, and his hair was sticking up; his eyes were bright and his posture was lazy, and he greeted them with a flat, "What."

"Detective Lassiter, is there a reason you haven't been answering your phone?" Vick said.

"I honestly do not know where it is," he said, and angled himself against the doorframe, one hand hooked over the top of the door to keep it in place. It was the disregard that gave him away—he wasn't slurring, but as much as a hardass as he could be, he still held himself to even higher standards than he did everyone else.

Vick had noticed, too. "Detective Lassiter," she said, "are you _drunk?"_

"And about to get laid, so if you don't mind…" He started to close the door; from behind him came very close, very muffled, very _female_ laughter. Very familiar female laughter, and that was definitely, _definitely_ Nadine's partner.

Beside her, Spencer had some kind of full-body spasm. Nadine wondered if he was in the middle of a psychic fit.

"Uh, _no,"_ Vick said, and caught the door. "We are here on important business from the deputy mayor, and as sorry as I am to disturb your evening, we need your help now."

The giggling increased in volume and mirth. Lassiter's eyes narrowed, and he didn't let the door budge an inch. "The deputy mayor is chickenshit," he said. He started to close the door again; Vick blocked it with her foot. There was a brief struggle, during which what Nadine felt comfortable calling the drunken giggling continued, and then whoever was giggling decided to slip her arms around Lassiter's waist.

"Oh for the love of Xorn," Guster said, "the reputation of the SBPD is on the line, Lassiter!"

The struggle ceased, and Lassiter let the door swing open. Juliet's head popped around his shoulder. "Hi, Chief," she said, and then dissolved into giggles again. Oh yeah, they were both halfway to plastered—Lassiter had one of his hands over hers against his chest, with his other arm braced against the doorway, and when Juliet's laughter started a new wave, his lips twitched.

"Let's just get through this without me murdering someone, shall we?" Vick said, and let herself inside.

Spencer was still frozen on the sidewalk. Guster clapped a hand on his buddy's shoulder, said, "I warned you," and followed Vick. Oh; Spencer hadn't known that Lassiter and Juliet were together, had he?

Nadine would have expected some kind of alpha male posturing from Lassiter right now, because, frankly, whatever Juliet thought, he was absolutely that type. The weird thing, though, was that he wasn't paying attention to Spencer at all; instead, he was looking down at where his fingers covered Juliet's. Oh yeah, this dude was gone.

"Excuse me," said Spencer. "Excuse me, but what is going on here? What is with this little—" He made some kind of convoluted gesture that involved both hands. "This little tête-à-tête? Please, hold the applause for my extensive vocabulary."

"It looks like a home invasion to me," Lassiter said. 

"That is _not_ the thing to which I was referring—" Spencer started to say, but Lassiter walked away, using their joined hands to pull Juliet after him. Now that they could see her clearly, Nadine thought it was kind of hilarious that Juliet was even more rumpled than he was—she had on leggings and an oversized tunic that was about to slide off one shoulder, and her cheeks were bright red.

She wriggled her fingers at them. "Hi Shawn! Hi Nadine!"

"Hi, Juliet," Nadine said, and then looked at Spencer. "Man, are you going to be okay? You look like you're having an asthma attack."

Spencer, to give him credit, stopped wheezing, shook himself all over like a dog, and squared his shoulders. "Fine! Just a little traumatized by Lassie in looo—ust. In lust! Haha."

"Hey," she said, "bright side, it's probably a miracle either one of them are upright."

"And?"

"You don't think watching Mr. and Ms. Professional try to pull their super cop routines while they're three sheets to the wind is going to be fun?"

Spencer considered this. "Detective Young, I believe you may have a point."

"Yep," said Nadine, and left him there on the sidewalk.

Detective Lassiter's house was clean, cozy, and clearly in a state of transition. There was a toolbox on the floor in the entrance hall, and paint samples were scattered across the kitchen countertop beside a bottle of tequila, of which much of the contents were missing. Vick had dropped her casefile on the paint chips with no regard for their order, and Guster was helping himself to the bowl of peanuts sitting by the breadbox. Juliet was plastered up against Lassiter's flank; he had a hand cupped around his mouth and was whispering something in her ear that earned him a playfully sharp, "Carlton!" and a slap to the chest.

"This appears to be an unfortunate repeat of the incident in which the deputy mayor's paperweight was stolen last year—Detectives? O'Hara!" Vick snapped her fingers a couple of times to get their attention. "Maybe you should drink some water?"

"There's a perfectly good bottle of tequila right next to you, Chief," Juliet said. And then gave a couple of snorts that gave way to another round of helpless giggling.

"Young, will you please get our friends some water and crackers, if you can find them." She waited while Nadine opened cupboards until she found some saltines and the water glasses, which she filled and distributed to the more inebriated portion of the gathering. Juliet chugged hers, snorted water up her nose, and then laughed about it; Lassiter seemed far more interested in glaring at Nadine for touching his cupboards. He bit into one of the saltines menacingly. Nadine had never been the target of ire expressed through the medium of crackers before.

"And Detective Lassiter, will you please button your shirt?" Lassiter ate another cracker. Juliet tried to follow Vick's instruction, but appeared to be far better at unfastening Lassiter's buttons. This was all complicated by how she wouldn't look away from his face—she was beaming at him, her expression the textbook definition of adoration. Lassiter finally finished his crackers and moved to help her, but between the two of them it still took an embarrassingly long time to finish, especially because they kept moving each other's hands out of the way.

"Thank you," said Vick. "As I was saying, the deputy mayor's very expensive, very tasteless turtle paperweight has gone missing again. He is angry. He is directing that anger at me. We are going to find the paperweight, return it to him, and possibly reward ourselves with a three-day weekend. O'Hara, your report from the last time the thing went missing says that—"

"Fuck the paperweight," announced Lassiter, who apparently had untapped veins of bluntness to mine, although five minutes ago Nadine would not have believed that possible.

"Carlton, no, remember?" Juliet jabbed an elbow in his side. "It might have _secrets."_

"Your hair has secrets, and you keep making me watch movies I do not want to watch, and I still find it improbable that there is some kind of blackmail material hidden in the turtle, it had no hidden compartments and you need hidden compartments for that sort of thing, O'Hara." He opened his mouth for another addition, looked around the room, and bent to whisper his conclusion directly in O'Hara's ear. It made her turn an even brighter red.

"I find this morbidly fascinating," Guster said. "I wonder if Lassiter's going to giggle next."

Vick was massaging her forehead. A cat jumped up on the counter and butted its head against her shoulder, and Vick groaned. "Will someone please get that thing away from me?"

Spencer looked at Guster. Guster looked at Nadine. Nadine looked at Juliet, but Juliet was still looking at Lassiter, who was looking back at her.

"The cat?" said Nadine.

"Oh, right," said Lassiter. He managed to tear himself away and coordinate his limbs enough to scoop the cat off the counter, where he cuddled it with the air of a man doing a chore. Nadine recognized the animal from a picture Juliet had on her desk; if Juliet's cats had taken up residence in Lassiter's home—and Nadine didn't doubt that the white one with the angry eyes was around here somewhere—then this wasn't so much a tête-à-tête as it was an engagement.

"Lassie, you never struck me as a cat man, when exactly did this…?" Spencer said.

Lassiter's hand engulfed the cat's furry gray skull, and the thing purred even more loudly. "It didn't," he said.

Juliet had wormed her way under his arm and was running her fingertip along the cat's nose while she told it what pretty whiskers it had. "Uh-huh," said Spencer, "and what is its name?"

 _"Her_ name is Flower," said Lassiter. He packed that sentence with as much dignity as it would allow, but immediately after his resolve shattered and he grinned down at the top of Juliet's head.

"I'm going to remind everyone that was are not here to discuss cats," Vick said. "Now, O'Hara, your report says that you found the paperweight at a pawn shop on Bond Street—"

"That isn't the right report," Juliet said.

"Excuse me?"

"Chief, Chief, look, I'm pretty sure it was _Bong_ Street."

"Bong Street," said Vick.

Juliet bit her lips; she was clearly struggling to keep a straight face. "Mmhmm."

"...Right," said Vick. "You know what, Detectives, I am starting to think that we will be better off solving this without your... _help_ , Young, will you check the hours of this store?"

"Uh, Chief?" said Nadine.

"Yes?"

"I really, really hate to point this out, but if it's the pawn shop I think it is, then the owner is one of Juliet's contacts."

"And?"

"Aaaannnd he probably won't talk to anyone but her," Nadine said. "He's kind of an, uh. Asshole. I don't think he likes police very much."

"For god's sake. Fine. Everyone in the car. If this is a repeat incident by the same perp, we'll find the turtle there. If it is not, I am going to be highly displeased. And you two—Detective Lassiter! Remove your hand from Detective O'Hara's shirt!"

Lassiter made sad eyes and extracted his hand from the back of Juliet's top. "Wow," said Juliet, in a voice that was six notches too loud to be a whisper, "she's really mean."

"I am _not_ —you know what? Never mind," said Vick.

"They were _touching,"_ Spencer hissed to Guster.

"Shawn, you know what? I do not even want to think about it. Uh-uh—about any of it." They were still arguing as they followed Vick outside.

Nadine sighed. That meant she was in charge of corralling Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, who were still joined at the hip and holding the cat as they started to leave. "Uh, Detective?" she said. "Detective Lassiter? You might want to leave Flower here."

"Oh," he said, and looked at the cat. "That is an excellent idea, Detective Young." He set Flower down on the floor and stood back up; for unknown reasons, Juliet had also doubled over with him, and now appeared to be having trouble balancing as she tried to straighten. Lassiter caught her around the waist and hauled her upright. He seemed a lot more sober than he was, but Nadine thought it was more likely that he was one of those drunks who could still string together full sentences right up to the point he collapsed on the floor. He was a lot nicer right now than he normally was, too, and Juliet managed to be even _more_ bubbly. Bubbly and blunt—this was going to be a fun evening.

Nadine took the bottle of tequila with her when she went. It was a precautionary measure; couldn't have one of the cats knocking it over and making a mess, after all.

-

They hit another problem when they reached the road, where they found they had to shove six people into a five-seat car. "I can drive Juliet's Bug," Nadine suggested, but her partner only said, "Oh no, it's fiiiiine!" 

And then she shoved Lassiter into the car and climbed into his lap.

"That is so unsafe," said Guster.

"Is this what they're like when they aren't at work?" Spencer wondered. "Because it's a little terrifying—Gus, I am terrified."

Nadine stuck her head in the back. Lassiter was sprawled, loose-limbed, his long legs taking up most of the knee room, and Juliet was tucked against him. "You know what," Nadine said, "I don't even care," and crawled into the middle. She applied a couple of sharp elbows to the parts of Lassiter that were in her way; he responded exactly like her older brother would have—that was, not at all. Spencer swung into the rear passenger side and gave her an appreciative glance when he noticed the upright bottle of tequila held between her thighs.

"Nice job, Detective Young!" he said.

"You don't get any," Nadine told him. "And—no, Juliet, back off, you definitely do not get any!" She batted Juliet's hand away; Juliet's eyes started to water. "Are you seriously going to try crocodile tears right now?"

The tears dried up. "I don't know what you're talking about," Juliet said, and then she almost toppled off her seat giving a big, exaggerated wink.

"Did you make her cry?" Lassiter demanded.

"What—no. Man, she is not crying, look at her." Juliet was back to giving him the same soppy smile of adoration as earlier, the one that clearly said she thought Lassiter had hung the moon and stars.

Lassiter did look at her. "Hi," he said.

"Hi," Juliet said. It was kind of fascinating to see Lassiter's big hand curled over her knee. Fascinating, and also deeply, deeply weird.

"Know what I really want to do right now?" he said.

"Yes," said Juliet.

"I CANNOT HEAR THIS," Vick said. "God in heaven, if I had known this is what the two of you are like behind closed doors, I would have split you up years ago. Please tell me you are not this sickening all of the time."

Juliet leaned forward and said, right in Vick's ear, "Alcohol makes Carlton _friendly."_

"I should know better than to ask questions by now," Vick said. "And I suspect the two of you are going to be deeply and gravely ashamed when you wake up tomorrow." Nadine didn't think that was exactly fair, since neither of them—in fact, since nobody in the car at all—had expected they'd be pulled into work. People should generally be allowed to get drunk and screw in their free time, even if in this specific instance Nadine didn't really need to see any of the foreplay.

Juliet hiccuped.

"You know," Nadine said, "and I realize it's a little late to ask this, but I'm wondering if either of you get carsick."

Lassiter, who had put his his head back and was toying with Juliet's hair, ignored her, but Juliet said, "Nooooo."

"Lassiter?" Nadine said. "Detective Lassiter!"

"What? No! Probably not."

"He puked in my hair once," Juliet said, "but that was on a boat."

"There were extenuating circumstances," Lassiter explained.

"The boat was moving," Juliet added.

"Chief?" said Spencer. He'd spent most of the ride suspiciously silent, watching the Juliet and Lassiter Variety Act with narrowed eyes, but now he was starting to squirm. "Chief, are we almost there?"

"Yes," said Vick.

"Are we there now?"

"No," said Vick.

"When will we be there?"

"I will hit you, and it will hurt," Guster cut in. "Don't think you're safe just because I'm in the front seat, Shawn."

"That's it," said Vick, and pulled to the curb. "Everyone out. You are all walking the last two blocks."

"Aww," said Spencer, but Nadine was already shoving him out of the car. She left the tequila. Juliet crawled all the way across the seat and exited behind her; she stumbled a little when she hit the curb, and Nadine was thankful that her partner was wearing flats.

Lassiter followed Juliet like he was on a leash. Unfortunately, she was making a beeline for a well-dressed couple in their sixties who were headed for the Mexican restaurant a few doors down. "Hi!" she said. "I love your hair!"

The woman had a daisy pinned in her updo; she was wearing an A-line dress with a hemline high enough that Nadine wanted to applaud, and at Juliet's compliment, she touched her hairline and preened. "Oh, darling, thank you," she said. "It's fresh from my garden, and I couldn't resist."

"It's lovely," Juliet said. Lassiter had taken up a post at her back, his body angled away to make it clear he had no part in the conversation, but he was standing close enough that Juliet's feet were tucked between his—flip-flop, loafer, flip-flop, loafer. "I didn't know daisies bloomed in winter."

"She has a hothouse," the man said. "Built it ourselves." He was wearing a gray three-piece suit in the style of Old Hollywood, and had an accent that Nadine would probably peg as Indian. 

"Did you hear that, Carlton?" Lassiter grunted. "Maybe we should think about putting in something like that in the backyard. If you want, it's your backyard, but we could grow lettuce—"

Lassiter grunted again. "Okay!" Guster said, brightly. "Thanks so much for the home improvement tips, nice to meet you, we've gotta get going. Come on." He spread his arms and started walking towards Juliet and Lassiter like he was trying to herd a flock of ducks. Juliet responded; Lassiter followed her; and their procession started down the sidewalk, although not before waving goodbye to the diners.

"We don't have to have a hothouse," Juliet said. "I mean— _you_ don't have to have a hothouse, but you're always talking about how big the yard is."

Lassiter appeared unconcerned about landscaping. "You smell nice, O'Hara," he told Juliet.

She beamed at him and took his arm. "So do you."

Spencer pretended to vomit into a nearby trashcan. Nadine played along by whacking him on the back a couple of times, until he started coughing for real. "Be nice!" she said. "They're happy. It's sweet. He got stabbed a couple of months ago, remember?"

"Please," said Spencer, "like I could forget. Juliet broke my nose."

"She did not break your nose," said Guster.

"She fractured it!"

"The doctor said there were no fractures."

"Well," Spencer said, "I had two black eyes the next day, that's a serious enough offense. If she'd picked somebody else to punch, it would have been a pretty badass moment, though."

Nadine pulled back a little, out of Juliet's earshot. "That was after the thing with Soledad?"

"Oh yeah," said Guster. "Lassiter was bleeding out, and Juliet acted like she was going to shoot anyone who touched him. She was out of it like Patrick Jane in that one TV show."

"I don't think she was acting," said Spencer. "And that was amnesia."

"Brought about by a fugue state, thank you very much," said Guster. 

Nadine tuned out their quibbling. Juliet was only a few years older, but she'd made detective at an early age and had enough experience under her belt that Nadine had started to think of her as—well, kind of a role model. She was tough and canny, with an outside way of looking at problems, and she knew how to use people's assumptions about her against them; Nadine respected that. Up until this minute, though, she'd never thought Juliet capable of fear.

She only knew a little about Lassiter and Juliet's partnership—they were reputed to be one of the best teams to pass through the SBPD and had quietly amassed an impressive record between them, although they'd been partnered less than half a decade. And then there'd been that announcement that they were splitting up and that Lassiter had been demoted from head detective. Nadine had been new enough that she hadn't grasped the full context, but as she watched them walk down the sidewalk, completely absorbed in each other, she thought she understood a little better what they must have sacrificed.

"Fine!" said Guster. "I will concede that you know more about basic cable staples, but only if you admit my superiority when it comes to major network dramas!"

"No way, man," said Spencer. "Come on, Gus, as if."

She rolled her eyes and checked her phone for the time. If they wrapped this up in the next hour, she could make it to her knitting club in time for Daniel to finish teaching her how to do socks.

Vick was waiting for them outside of the pawn shop with her arms crossed. "Did you get lost?" she demanded.

Juliet tripped over nothing and fell against Lassiter. "Did we?"

Vick huffed. "What's your plan, Detective O'Hara?"

"Well," said Juliet, "I kind of thought we could beat it out of him. Carlton, you hold his arms, and I'll work him over."

"Got it," said Lassiter, comically sincere, and reached for the door.

"Um, no," said Vick. "We will be _talking_ to the—Detective? O'Hara? Lassiter!" They'd already vanished inside.

"Uh-oh," said Nadine, and high-tailed it after them. 

The pawn shop held the expected eclectic mix of the valuable and the worthless; she had to step over a couple of trunks filled with costume jewelry that had been left right inside the door. Juliet was on a straight trajectory for the tall white man behind the counter. "Rick!" she said.

"Juliet!" Rick spread his arms and started forward, but, moving with a speed that should have been beyond him after that much tequila, Lassiter inserted himself in front of Juliet.

"Hi Rick!" Juliet said over Lassiter's shoulder. "I have a question!"

"And I have an answer," said Rick, "in fact, I am having a special on answers. Two for one for pretty ladies. No specials for angry men," he added.

"I am not angry, this is just my face!" Lassiter retorted.

Juliet went up on the tips of her toes and put a hand over Lassiter's mouth. "We're looking for the turtle, that turtle? The turtle thing? Carlton?"

Lassiter said something muffled, took Juliet's arm by the wrist to pull it away, and then repeated, "The paperweight."

"What? Oh yeah, right here." Rick dug through a couple of boxes and some tissue paper until he uncovered their MacGuffin. It was about the size of a baseball, and the shell was inlaid with what were probably diamonds and emeralds. It wasn't the most atrocious thing in the world—in fact, it would've been kind of cute, if it had been set with cubic zirconia or something slightly less precious. "That little shit told me his dad had decided to get rid of it. Been waiting for you guys to show up."

"Excuse me, but what little shit?" said Vick.

"JJ," said Juliet. At Vick's blank look, she added, "The deputy mayor's son?"

"You never named a perpetrator in your report," Vick said.

"Because it was the deputy mayor's son," Lassiter said. "He tried to pawn it before. Probably to buy the reefer."

"Nobody calls it that," Juliet said.

"I call it that."

"Is this because you don't want me to move in?" Juliet demanded.

Lassiter looked like someone had smacked him over the head with a billy club. "Of course I want you to move in," he said, totally bewildered. "I tolerate your cats."

"You've always tolerated my cats!"

He fell back on the habit of compressing confusion into anger. "Are you being stupid on purpose?"

"I'm only ever accidentally stupid!" Juliet snapped.

"I'll be taking that," Vick said, and swooped in to take the turtle. "Thank you for your assistance, Mr.—Rick."

"No problem. Don't come back," said Rick. "I mean that, except for Juliet, she's welcome—Juliet?"

Juliet had taken off. "Be right back!" Nadine said, and then collided with Lassiter as they both rushed for the door. He took her by the shoulders—close enough that Nadine could smell the fumes on him—and moved her aside. "O'Hara!" he said, but she was gone.

He followed her, and Nadine followed him, and somehow they all ended up at the next-door bar, which smelled like cigarettes although there were no cigarettes in sight. It was disgusting. Juliet plopped herself at the counter and flagged down the bartender. Lassiter took up the stool beside her, and although she kept her face turned away, her body sagged against him as soon as he sat down.

Nadine, who had won her spot on the force primarily through a reputation for adaptability, said, "I could go for a burger," and seated herself at one of the empty tables. She had ordered and was halfway finished with her first Coke by the time Vick and company trooped inside. Up at the bar, Juliet was explaining something in earnest to her boyfriend; Lassiter reached out and touched her, just briefly, on the cheek.

"Someone make sure they don't drink themselves into comas," Nadine said. "I am off-duty until I've eaten."

Vick groaned as she sat down. "I think we're all off-duty. I cannot believe the deputy mayor dragged me away from a family picnic because his maladroit son tried to pawn a paperweight."

"No kidding," said Guster. "Do you think they have sweet potato fries here? Because I'm having a craving."

"They have onion rings," Spencer said, and picked up a menu. "That guy over there has onion rings. Delicious, battered, fried rings of onion."

"At least I have confirmation that neither O'Hara nor Lassiter threw away their professional relationship for a fling," said Vick. "Although I did receive more insight into that particular personal dynamic than I ever would have wanted. At this rate they're going to have to be buried in the same grave to prevent separation anxiety."

Behind his menu, Spencer made a gagging noise. "Hey, come on," Nadine said, "I told you to be nice."

"I'm nice, I am the very—the highest—everything about me is nice." Spencer lowered the menu. "But come on, it's a little traumatic."

"Dude, I'm nine-hundred percent certain that not only would they die for each other, they would kill for each other. That's kind of a relationship ideal," said Nadine.

"You cops disturb me very much, it's like you all think you're living out _Die Hard,"_ Spencer complained, but his lips were twitching. "But, since I am nice, I am willing to relinquish the fight because I am starving. Waiter? Waiter!"

Nadine sank back against the hard back of her chair. She'd given up any idea of making Stitch 'n' Bitch on time, but the smell emanating from the direction of the kitchen was making her mouth water, the company was good, and they'd scored brownie points with the deputy mayor. She had some decent blackmail material on Juliet, too. There were worse ways to spend a Saturday night.

And then, right as the waiter was approaching, Detective Lassiter swooped in. Juliet was with him—of course she was—and she had, somehow, obtained the bottle of tequila that had been left in the back of the black-and-white. At least she was smiling again.

"Can we go now?" Lassiter demanded. "I was about to get laid—"


End file.
